Labels for parts

#1

“Back in the day”…when I ran a fair sized cabinet and fixture fab shop. My age is showing. Those phrases recalling the past are all too frequently uttered.

A bit of history. That shop was in the 1995 to 2006 time frame. Profitable operation. I had production grade equipment, used CAD for design, sheet optimization software for layout and cutlists. In this process somewhere labels were printed and placed on the parts as they were cut manually on the panel saw.

At the time we were “state of the art”.

Fifteen years later a lot, everything, has changed. Although I still see a need to have the CNC cut parts marked with some info. Part name and cabinet assembly the part belongs to at a minimum. As I recall our labels (stick on) had; part name, cabinet number and OA dimensions.

How are users identifying parts?

#2

You can definitely embed part information in the components you send to Fabber, we don’t have a way to put those on the parts… yet. We’ve been thinking about it though.

When you had your shop, did you machine have a label applicator on it? Or were operators writing the part names/numbers on the parts and referencing off of the screen?

#3

I designed in KCD software back then. KCD produced a cutlist that could be aranged large patrs to small parts. The cutlist was for a total job maybe 30-50 cabinets, KCD also produced a file of labels that fit on the sticky addres label sheets. We used a Holzer vertical panel saw with scoring 5HP and an 18 ft frame. The sawer cut parts fast, with the 18 foot frame the drop piece of the sheet stayed on the saw for the next group of parts. The sawyer took the label off the sheet and applied it to the part. We were a full euro shp as TRUE32.COM sets up. I was an early one. Good system for managing a profitable shop. CNC was unusual then. CNC was expensive and most larger shops already had a $30K saw, $12K system drill We had 22 spindles double row. And a $45k edgebander.

I believe labels are crucial to fast and error free assembly. If one needs to make a profit, you need to move fast and efficiently. I would like to load large groups of cabinets, thus the label needs to ID cabinet and part.

As the top side of the part (on the CNC router) is most often the interior side of the part; I have been thinking of Lightly routing the cabinet number and part code into the part. No labels to mess with.

Does the .svg file contain component name and other identifying data?
What can I use to look inside the svg file?

#4

I could see us definitely doing a nested sheet printout with labels and/or part numbers on them. That way an operator could peel and stick the labels to whatever parts are needed.

As far as looking in the SVG file, you can open it in any text editor, although I don’t think you’ll be finding what you’re looking for… The SVG just draws all of the outlines for parts, it doesn’t put labels in there (although in theory it could)

Have you tried out our Alpha product? Sounds like you’d be a good candidate to test it out…